New Kitchen, time to start experimenting again.
Gluten free, mostly organic and british.
Plus now the Allotment too !

Sunday, 1 March 2009

Daring Bakers - chocolate Cake

February's challenge was automatically gluten free because it was a flour free chocolate cake. The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I must admit however I failed partly. I don't have an ice-cream maker and have been clearing the main freezer to defrost it so I never managed the ice cream.

I did manage the chocolate cake and I must say our hosts are right when they say the cake will taste just like the chocolate you use for it. I used a mix of milk and dark chocolate but if it did it again I'd use just milk or perhaps the honey milk chocolate from Hotel Chocolat which is fantastic though I'm not sure they do it in slabs current or if it was just in the tasting box.

The recipe has three ingredients and at one point you have three bowls !I slightly over cooked the cake so the edge was a little burnt but it was hard to see as the cake is so dark. As soon as the cake came out fo the oven I topped it with chocolate buttons which worked quite well as the heat stuck them to the cake. I also got to use our new silicon cake tin for the first time which was very good.---------------------------Chocolate ValentinoPreparation Time: 20 minutes16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.